This Day Will Never Be Again

There are days that I think I will never write again and then there are days when a thought, then a stream of words and ideas full my mind faster than I can process what direction my thoughts and feelings want to go. Most of you know that I am spending my days with Mom and Dad. With the first "winter like" weather forecast looming, I spent the day doing a few last outside chores around their house, painting the basement door on the rental house, cleaning the fern bed out, dragging the birdseed bag to the back porch and preparing for the rainy, cold days to come. I've wrestled with my feelings about being here with Mom and Dad.  Like many things lately, I have come to the conclusion that the best thing to do in certain situations is to embrace the moments of my life. As I began to prepare Dad's evening meal, I found myself standing in front of the microwave, a fairly typical behavior for someone from my generation.  Within a few seconds, I thought what a waste of time standing here for 3 minutes waiting, so I walked to the back porch to embrace what I know will be one of the last warm fall evenings. As I gaze at the hillside behind my childhood home, I see that a few trees cling to their leaves and the sun is reflecting the glory of colors these trees present to me. I also notice that Mom was correct that the old magnolia tree, that provided the limb for our childhood rope swing, has lost most of its leaves today. They lay in a pile at the foot of the tree. The evening sun casts its last rays on the river that is coated with a layer of leaves floating along for a ride on the Cheat to a destination unknown. The bell on the microwave brought me back to my task at hand, but I begin to think of how many moments I have lost to impatiently waiting by a microwave, a toaster, a phone, really the list is endless. It also dawned on me that really we never fully appreciate that this exact day will never be again. The sun will not set on the hillside exactly as it did today on the trees, on the hillside, behind my childhood home. What might tomorrow bring, or the week to come, or the year to come? What is the likely hood that I will be standing in this house this time next year? I have had people tell me that this is a difficult affair and time, that of taking care of aging parents, but somewhere in time I decided to embrace these moments and cling to them like I do with the last warm, sunny days of fall in the mountains before the cold rains and snows of winter set in for the duration until spring thaw. We all cling to the hope of one more fall, one more winter, one more Christmas with those we love, but we actually never know, do we, what the future brings so I will embrace this fall day, the view of the hillside, and this time with my parents.